Systems and methods for preventing corruption of user viewing profiles

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described to address shortcomings in conventional media systems via a novel technique to prevent corruption of a user&#39;s viewing profile. In some aspects, a user of an interactive media guidance application may select a media asset for viewing on a user device. The interactive media guidance application may receive a user viewing profile for the user from a remote server. If the media asset is determined to not be consistent with the user viewing profile, the interactive media guidance application may retrieve another user viewing profile for another user of the user device. If the media asset is determined to be consistent with the other user viewing profile, the interactive media guidance application may update the other user viewing profile based on the media asset.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a Continuation Application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/857,401, filed Dec. 28, 2017, which is aContinuation Application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/221,780,filed Jul. 28, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,860,596, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

BACKGROUND

Conventional media systems can keep track of the television programsthat have been viewed on a particular user device. Some conventionalsystems can keep track of television programs that have been viewed onall user devices in a particular household. Yet other conventionalsystems can keep track of television programs that have been viewed byindividual household members on these user devices and generate userviewing histories for each household member. Typically, theseconventional systems require the household member to create a userprofile and associate the television programs viewed by the householdmember to his or her user profile. However, there is no provision inconventional systems to detect whether the correct user profile has beenselected for the household member currently viewing television programson a user device. If an incorrect user profile is selected, the userprofile may be corrupted due to inclusion of the television programsthat the household member has viewed while the incorrect user profilewas selected.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are described to address shortcomings inconventional media systems via a novel technique to prevent corruptionof a user's viewing profile. In some aspects, the systems and methodsdetermine that a media asset, such as a television program, selected forviewing is inconsistent with the currently selected user viewing profileand determine another user viewing profile such that the media asset isconsistent with the other user viewing profile. The systems and methodsmay be implemented via an interactive media guidance application runningon a user device, a remote server, or another suitable device. Theinteractive media guidance application may be implemented partially onmultiple devices such that some portions of the interactive mediaguidance application are executed on one device while other portions ofthe interactive media guidance application are executed on anotherdevice.

Certain viewing situations may not necessarily be a part of a user'sordinary viewing experience. These viewing situations may “corrupt” theuser's viewing profile and therefore provide unwanted recommendations ofparticular media content to the user. For example, a father may viewaction films, sports programs, and news programs on a regular basis, buta child may occasionally view a cartoon program on his father's account,thereby “corrupting” his profile. In another example, the user may viewone episode to see what all the hype is about for popular programming,such as the television program “Downton Abbey.” However, the televisionprogram may not necessarily be of interest to the user. When aparticular television program is viewed on a user's account that is notconsistent with their regular viewing habits, the interactive mediaguidance application may prompt the user to provide feedback on theparticular television program (e.g., whether or not the user liked it)or whether the user would like to include the television program in theuser's viewing profile. Accordingly, the user's viewing profile may beprevented from being corrupted if the media content is orthogonal to theuser's typical viewing habits.

For example, a viewer may select a television program for viewing. Theinteractive media guidance application may retrieve the user's viewingprofile or a set of rules associated with the user's viewing profile toanalyze whether the television program is inconsistent with the user'sviewing patterns. Additionally or alternatively, the interactive mediaguidance application may compare the television program to user viewingprofiles from other users who have profiles similar to the current user.The interactive media guidance application may determine that theselected television program is inconsistent with the user's viewingprofile and, in response, perform a related function. The interactivemedia guidance application may notify the user of the inconsistency.Additionally, the interactive media guidance application may prompt theuser to confirm whether he or she would like to proceed with theselected television program. Additionally or alternatively, theinteractive media guidance application may offer the user an option toproceed with the selected television program without updating the user'sviewing profile to indicate that the user has viewed the televisionprogram.

Additionally or alternatively, the interactive media guidanceapplication may notify the user of the inconsistency and update anotheruser's viewing profile that is consistent with the selected televisionprogram. The interactive media guidance application may update the otheruser's viewing profile automatically or prompt the user to affirmativelyselect the other user's viewing profile. For example, if a child selectsa television program while the parent's user viewing profile is in use,the interactive media guidance application may recognize that theselected program is inconsistent with the parent's user viewing profilebut consistent with the child's user viewing profile. The interactivemedia guidance application may update the child's user viewing profile,indicating the child has viewed the selected television program, insteadof updating the parent's user viewing profile with the selectedtelevision program.

In another example, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine that a selected television program is inconsistent with acurrently selected child's user viewing profile and notify the parentregarding the inconsistency. For example, the child may have selected atelevision program that is inappropriate for him or her. The interactivemedia guidance application may notify the parent so he or she may reviewthe television program for appropriateness. Alternatively, the parentmay learn that another family member had selected the television programbut it was inconsistent with the child's user viewing profile which waslast used on the user device in question.

The user viewing profile may include information regarding thetelevision programs the user has viewed in the past. The user viewingprofile may include information such as genre, rating, actor, director,channel, air time, end time, air length, length watched, date, month,day of the week, and other suitable information relating to thetelevision program. The interactive media guidance application oranother suitable application may analyze information regardingtelevision programs viewed by the user and determine trends across theinformation. For example, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine that a majority of the viewed television programs belong tothe comedy genre. In such a case, if the user were to select atelevision program belonging to the horror genre, the interactive mediaguidance application may determine the selected television program to beinconsistent with the user's viewing profile.

In another example, the interactive media guidance application maydetermine that the user predominantly watches television programs fromthe comedy genre on weekdays but watches television programs form thedrama genre on weekends. In such a case, if the user were to select atelevision program belonging to the drama genre on a weekday, theinteractive media guidance application may determine the selectedtelevision program to be inconsistent with the user's viewing profile.In another example, the interactive media guidance may determine thatthe user watches television programs relating to soccer games in thesummer months but watches television programs relating to football gamesin the winter months. In such a case, if the user were to select atelevision program relating to soccer in a winter month, the interactivemedia guidance application may determine the selected television programto be inconsistent with the user's viewing profile.

The interactive media guidance application may analyze pastdeterminations of inconsistent television programs being selected todetermine similar future occurrences. For example, the interactive mediaguidance application may analyze multiple determinations of inconsistenttelevision programs being selected during the Thanksgiving holiday. Theuser may have visitors at his or her home who may select televisionprograms that are inconsistent with the user's viewing profile. Theinteractive media guidance application may determine that this period isappropriate for preventing updates to the user's viewing profile basedon the selected television programs. In another example, the interactivemedia guidance application may analyze multiple determinations ofinconsistent television programs being selected during the first week ofnew fall television programming. The user may be trying out new falltelevision programming to find a new favorite show, but some or all ofthe selected television programs may be inconsistent with the user'sviewing profile. The interactive media guidance application maydetermine that this period is appropriate for preventing updates to theuser's viewing profile based on the selected television programs.

The interactive media guidance application or another suitableapplication may determine rules based on the information in the user'sviewing profile. The interactive media guidance application may storethe rules in local memory for easy access while the user's viewingprofile may be stored at a remote server. The rules may require lessstorage space and may be more resource efficient when determiningwhether a selected television program is consistent with the user'sviewing profile. The rules may be updated when the information in theuser's viewing profile is changed. In some embodiments, the rules areupdated at every instance information is changed in the user's viewingprofile. In some embodiments, the rules are updated at specifiedintervals of time. In some embodiments, the rules are updated after athreshold number of changes have occurred to the user's viewing profile.

In some aspects, a user, such as a parent or a child, of the interactivemedia guidance application may select a media asset, such as televisionprogram “Care Bears,” for viewing on a user device, such as a set-topbox, a television device, a mobile device, or another suitable device.The interactive media guidance application may receive a user viewingprofile for a first user, such as the parent, from a remote server.Alternatively, the interactive media guidance application may havealready received the user viewing profile for the first user from theremote server. The interactive media guidance application may determinewhether the media asset is consistent with the user viewing profile forthe first user. If the media asset is determined to not be consistentwith the user viewing profile, the interactive media guidanceapplication may retrieve another user viewing profile for another userof the user device, such as the child. The interactive media guidanceapplication may determine whether the media asset is consistent with theother user viewing profile. If the media asset is determined to beconsistent with the other user viewing profile, the interactive mediaguidance application may update the other user viewing profile based onthe media asset.

In some aspects, the systems and methods described herein provide for amethod for preventing corruption of a first user viewing profile for afirst user of a user device. The method may be implemented via aninteractive media guidance application that is executed on controlcircuitry. The interactive media guidance application receives, from aremote server, the first user viewing profile including a firstplurality of media assets. The interactive media guidance applicationdetermines a first set of rules for the first user viewing profile basedon the first plurality of media assets. The interactive media guidanceapplication receives a selection to view a media asset on the userdevice. The interactive media guidance application applies the first setof rules to the media asset to determine whether the media asset isconsistent with the first user viewing profile.

In response to determining that the media asset is not consistent withthe first user viewing profile, the interactive media guidanceapplication retrieves, from the remote server, a second user viewingprofile for a second user of the user device. The second user viewingprofile includes a second plurality of media assets and is associatedwith a second set of rules. The interactive media guidance applicationfurther applies the second set of rules to the media asset to determinewhether the media asset is consistent with the second user viewingprofile. In response to determining that the media asset is consistentwith the second user viewing profile, the interactive media guidanceapplication updates the second user viewing profile to include the mediaasset in the second plurality of media assets. The interactive mediaguidance application further updates the second set of rules for thesecond user viewing profile based on the updated second plurality ofmedia assets.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the media asset isconsistent with the first user viewing profile, the interactive mediaguidance application updates the first user viewing profile to includethe media asset in the first plurality of media assets. The interactivemedia guidance application further updates the first set of rules forthe first user viewing profile based on the updated first plurality ofmedia assets.

In some embodiments, the first set of rules is stored in a local memoryof the user device and the first viewing profile is stored on the remoteserver.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationdetermines the first set of rules for the first user viewing profilebased on the first plurality of media assets by retrieving one or moremetadata tags for each of the first plurality of media assets,determining one or more trends in the one or more metadata tags for eachof the first plurality of media assets, and determining the first set ofrules based on the one or more trends.

In some embodiments, the one more metadata tags includes one or more ofa genre, a time slot, a title, a channel, a media source, a language, amonth, a day of week, a parental rating, and a popularity rating.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application appliesthe first set of rules to the media asset to determine whether the mediaasset is consistent with the first user viewing profile by retrievingone or more metadata tags for the media asset, and determining, based onthe one or more metadata tags, whether any of the first set of rulesindicate a likelihood of the first user having selected the media asset.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance applicationgenerates for display a prompt requesting confirmation from the firstuser whether to proceed with the selected media asset in response todetermining that the media asset is not consistent with the first userviewing profile.

In some embodiments, in response to receiving the confirmation from thefirst user to proceed with the selected media asset, the interactivemedia guidance application generates for display another promptrequesting a passcode from the first user.

In some embodiments, the interactive media guidance application receivesthe passcode. In response to the passcode being incorrect, theinteractive media guidance application generates for display the mediaasset but prevents the media asset from being included in the first userviewing profile.

In some embodiments, in response to the passcode being correct, theinteractive media guidance application generates for display the mediaasset and including the media asset in the first user viewing profile.

There is no provision in conventional systems to detect whether thecorrect user profile has been selected for the household membercurrently viewing television programs on a user device. If an incorrectuser profile is selected, the user profile may be corrupted due toinclusion of the television programs that the household member hasviewed while the incorrect user profile was selected. The describedsystems and methods address shortcomings in conventional systems via anovel technique to prevent corruption of a user's viewing profile. Insome aspects, the systems and methods determine that a media asset, suchas a television program, selected for viewing is inconsistent with thecurrently selected user viewing profile and determine another userviewing profile such that the media asset is consistent with the otheruser viewing profile. While conventional systems require the householdmember to manually specify a user profile and associate the televisionprograms viewed by the household member to the specified user profile,the described systems and methods can prevent corruption of a user'sviewing profile by televisions programs being viewed by another user andoptionally determine the other user's viewing profile as the televisionprograms are viewed.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects described in thisdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a display screen generated by amedia guidance application in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 2 shows another illustrative example of a display screen generatedby a media guidance application in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows yet another illustrative example of a display screengenerated by a media guidance application in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows yet another illustrative example of a display screengenerated by a media guidance application in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows yet another illustrative example of a display screengenerated by a media guidance application in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 shows yet another illustrative example of a display screengenerated by a media guidance application in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for preventingcorruption of a first user viewing profile of a first user in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for determiningwhether the selected media asset is consistent with the first userviewing profile in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are described to address shortcomings inconventional media systems via a novel technique to prevent corruptionof a user's viewing profile. The systems and methods may be implementedvia an interactive media guidance application running on a user device,a remote server, or another suitable device. The interactive mediaguidance application may be implemented partially on multiple devicessuch that some portions of the interactive media guidance applicationare executed on one device while other portions of the interactive mediaguidance application are executed on another device.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a display screen 100 generatedby the interactive media guidance application. In the example, the userhas requested television program “Care Bears” for viewing. For example,the user may be a parent who is a fan and wishes to view the televisionprogram. In another example, the user may wish to preview the televisionprogram and judge its appropriateness for his or her child. In yetanother example, the user may be a parent who has accidentally selectedthis television program. In yet another example, the user may be a childwho has selected to view the television program while the parent's userviewing profile is selected.

The interactive media guidance application may retrieve a user viewingprofile for the parent, i.e., the currently selected user, from remotesources 816 or 818 (FIG. 8) and/or a set of rules for the parent's userviewing profile from local storage 708 (FIG. 7). When a particulartelevision program is viewed on a user's account that is not consistentwith their regular viewing habits, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate prompt 102 and notify the user via message 104that the selected program is inconsistent with the user's viewingprofile. The user may choose to proceed via option 106 or cancel viewingof the television program via option 108. Accordingly, the user'sviewing profile may be prevented from being corrupted if the mediacontent is orthogonal to the user's typical viewing habits.

In the example where the user is a parent who is a fan of the televisionprogram, the parent may select option 106 to proceed with viewing theprogram. In the example where the user wishes to preview the televisionprogram and judge its appropriateness for his or her child, the parentmay select option 106 to proceed with viewing the program. In theexample where the user is a parent who has accidentally selected thistelevision program, the parent may select option 108 to cancel viewingof the television program. In the example where a child has selected toview the television program while the parent's user viewing profile isselected, the child may select option 108 to cancel viewing of thetelevision program. The child may switch to his or her own user viewingprofile and proceed to reselect the television program for viewing. Theprovided examples do not limit the scope of the described systems andmethods and may be equally applicable to other suitable situations wherethe selected television program is inconsistent with the currentlyselected user viewing profile.

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a display screen 200 generatedby the interactive media guidance application. In the example, the userhas requested television program “Care Bears” for viewing. For example,the user may be a parent who is a fan and wishes to view the televisionprogram. In another example, the user may wish to preview the televisionprogram and judge its appropriateness for his or her child. In yetanother example, the user may be a parent who has accidentally selectedthis television program. In yet another example, the user may be a childwho has selected to view the television program while the parent's userviewing profile is selected.

The interactive media guidance application may retrieve a user viewingprofile for the parent, i.e., the currently selected user, from remotesources 816 or 818 (FIG. 8) and/or a set of rules for the parent's userviewing profile from local storage 708 (FIG. 7). When a particulartelevision program is viewed on a user's account that is not consistentwith their regular viewing habits, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate prompt 202 and notify the user via message 204that the selected program is inconsistent with the user's viewingprofile. The user may choose to proceed and update the user's viewingprofile via option 206, proceed but not update the user's viewingprofile via option 208, or change the user's viewing profile via option210. The user may proceed with the default option via option 212 orcancel viewing of the television program via option 214. Accordingly,the user's viewing profile may be prevented from being corrupted if themedia content is orthogonal to the user's typical viewing habits.

In the example where the user is a parent who is a fan of the televisionprogram, the parent may select option 206 to proceed with viewing theprogram and updating the user's viewing profile. In the example wherethe user wishes to preview the television program and judge itsappropriateness for his or her child, the parent may select option 208to proceed with viewing the program but not updating the user's viewingprofile. In the example where the user is a parent who has accidentallyselected this television program, the parent may select option 214 tocancel viewing of the television program. In the example where a childhas selected to view the television program while the parent's userviewing profile is selected, the child may select option 214 to cancelviewing of the television program or the child may switch to his or herown user viewing profile using option 210 and proceed to reselect thetelevision program for viewing. The provided examples do not limit thescope of the described systems and methods and may be equally applicableto other suitable situations where the selected television program isinconsistent with the currently selected user viewing profile.

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a display screen 300 generatedby the interactive media guidance application. In the example, the userhas requested television program “Care Bears” for viewing. For example,the user may be a parent who is a fan and wishes to view the televisionprogram. In another example, the user may wish to preview the televisionprogram and judge its appropriateness for his or her child. In yetanother example, the user may be a parent who has accidentally selectedthis television program. In yet another example, the user may be a childwho has selected to view the television program while the parent's userviewing profile is selected.

The interactive media guidance application may retrieve a user viewingprofile for the parent, i.e., the currently selected user, from remotesources 816 or 818 (FIG. 8) and/or a set of rules for the parent's userviewing profile from local storage 708 (FIG. 7). When a particulartelevision program is viewed on a user's account that is not consistentwith his or her regular viewing habits, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate prompt 302 and notify the user via message 304that the selected program is inconsistent with the user's viewingprofile. Additionally, message 304 may inform the user that theselection will automatically be placed in another profile which isconsistent with the selected program. The user may choose to proceed viaoption 306 or cancel viewing of the television program via option 308.Accordingly, the user's viewing profile may be prevented from beingcorrupted if the media content is orthogonal to the user's typicalviewing habits.

In the example where the user is a parent who is a fan of the televisionprogram, the parent may select option 308 to cancel viewing of theprogram. The parent may instead wish for the television programselection to be placed in his or her user viewing profile instead of thechild's user viewing profile. In the example where the user wishes topreview the television program and judge its appropriateness for his orher child, the parent may select option 306 to proceed with viewing theprogram. However, the parent may instead select option 308 to cancelviewing of the program in case the user is concerned the program may notbe appropriate for placement in the child's user viewing profile. In theexample where the user is a parent who has accidentally selected thistelevision program, the parent may select option 308 to cancel viewingof the television program. In the example where a child has selected toview the television program while the parent's user viewing profile isselected, the child may select option 306 to proceed in case theautomatically selected user viewing profile belongs to the child. Incase the automatically selected user viewing profile does not belong tothe child, the child may switch to his or her own user viewing profileand proceed to reselect the television program for viewing. The providedexamples do not limit the scope of the described systems and methods andmay be equally applicable to other suitable situations where theselected television program is inconsistent with the currently selecteduser viewing profile.

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of a display screen 400 generatedby the interactive media guidance application. In the example, the userhas requested television program “Care Bears” for viewing. For example,the user may be a parent who is a fan and wishes to view the televisionprogram. In another example, the user may wish to preview the televisionprogram and judge its appropriateness for his or her child. In yetanother example, the user may be a parent who has accidentally selectedthis television program. In yet another example, the user may be a childwho has selected to view the television program while the parent's userviewing profile is selected.

The interactive media guidance application may retrieve a user viewingprofile for the parent, i.e., the currently selected user, from remotesources 816 or 818 (FIG. 8) and/or a set of rules for the parent's userviewing profile from local storage 708 (FIG. 7). When a particulartelevision program is viewed on a user's account that is not consistentwith his or her regular viewing habits, the interactive media guidanceapplication may generate prompt 402 and notify the user via message 404that the selected program is inconsistent with the user's viewingprofile. The user may choose to proceed via options 406, 408, 410, or412. The user may proceed with the default option via option 414 orcancel viewing of the television program via option 416. Accordingly,the user's viewing profile may be prevented from being corrupted if themedia content is orthogonal to the user's typical viewing habits.

In the example where the user is a parent who is a fan of the televisionprogram, the parent may select option 410 to place the selection in theuser's currently selected profile and proceed with viewing the program.In the example where the user wishes to preview the television programand judge its appropriateness for his or her child, the parent mayselect option 412 to not place the selection in any user viewing profileand proceed with viewing the program. In the example where the user is aparent who has accidentally selected this television program, the parentmay select option 416 to cancel viewing of the television program. Inthe example where a child has selected to view the television programwhile the parent's user viewing profile is selected, the child mayselect option 406 or 408 to select his or her user viewing profile andproceed with viewing the program. In case neither option relates to thechild's user viewing profile, the child may cancel viewing of thetelevision program via option 416. The child may switch to his or herown user viewing profile and proceed to reselect the television programfor viewing. The provided examples do not limit the scope of thedescribed systems and methods and may be equally applicable to othersuitable situations where the selected television program isinconsistent with the currently selected user viewing profile.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 5-6 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 5-6 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 5-6 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 5 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 500arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 500 may include grid 502 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 504, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 506, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 502 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 508, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 510. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 510 may be provided inprogram information region 512. Region 512 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 502 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 514, recorded content listing 516, andInternet content listing 518. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 500 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings514, 516, and 518 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 502 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 502. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 520. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 520.)

Display 500 may also include video region 522, and options region 526.Video region 522 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 522 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 502. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 526 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 526 may be part of display 500 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 526 may concern features related to program listings in grid 502or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 8. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 6. Video mosaic display 600 includes selectable options 602 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 600, television listings option 604 isselected, thus providing listings 606, 608, 610, and 612 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 600 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 608 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 614 and text portion 616.Media portion 614 and/or text portion 616 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 614 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 600 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 606 islarger than listings 608, 610, and 612), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 7 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 700. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 8.User equipment device 700 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 702. I/O path 702 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 704, which includesprocessing circuitry 706 and storage 708. Control circuitry 704 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 702. I/O path 702 may connect control circuitry 704 (andspecifically processing circuitry 706) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 704 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 706. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 708). Specifically, control circuitry 704 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 704 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 704 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 704 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 8). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 708 thatis part of control circuitry 704. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 708 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 8, may be used to supplementstorage 708 or instead of storage 708.

Control circuitry 704 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 704 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 700. Circuitry 704 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 708 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 700, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 708.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 704 using user inputinterface 710. User input interface 710 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 712 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 700. For example, display 712 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 710may be integrated with or combined with display 712. Display 712 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 712 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 712 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 712.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry704. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 704.Speakers 714 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 700 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 712 may be played throughspeakers 714. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers714.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 700. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage708), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 704 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 708 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 704 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 710. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 710 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 700 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 700. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 704 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 704) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 700. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 700.Equipment device 700 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 710 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 700 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 710.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 700 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 704). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 704 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 704. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 704. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 700 of FIG. 7 can be implemented in system 800 ofFIG. 8 as user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804,wireless user communications device 806, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 7 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804, or awireless user communications device 806. For example, user televisionequipment 802 may, like some user computer equipment 804, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 804 may, like some television equipment 802, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 804, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 806.

In system 800, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 8 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 802, user computer equipment 804, wireless user communicationsdevice 806) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 814.Namely, user television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804, andwireless user communications device 806 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 814 via communications paths 808, 810, and 812, respectively.Communications network 814 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 808, 810, and 812 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 812 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 8 it is awireless path and paths 808 and 810 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 808, 810, and 812, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 814.

System 800 includes content source 816 and media guidance data source818 coupled to communications network 814 via communication paths 820and 822, respectively. Paths 820 and 822 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 808, 810,and 812. Communications with the content source 816 and media guidancedata source 818 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 816 and media guidance data source 818, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 8 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 816 and media guidance data source 818 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 816 and 818 withuser equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 are shown as throughcommunications network 814, in some embodiments, sources 816 and 818 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 808, 810, and 812.

Content source 816 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 816 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 816 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 816 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 818 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 818may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 818 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 818 mayprovide user equipment devices 802, 804, and 806 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 708, and executedby control circuitry 704 of a user equipment device 700. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 704 of user equipment device 700and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 818) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 818), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 818 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices802, 804, and 806 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 800 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 8.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 814.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 816 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 802 and user computer equipment 804may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 806 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 814. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 816 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 818. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 802, user computer equipment 804, and wirelessuser communications device 806. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 804 or wireless usercommunications device 806 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 804. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 814. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 7.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an illustrative process 900 for controlcircuitry (e.g., control circuitry 704) to prevent corruption of a firstuser viewing profile of a first user in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure. In some embodiments this algorithm may be encodedonto a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device 708) as a setof instructions to be decoded and executed by processing circuitry(e.g., processing circuitry 706). Processing circuitry may in turnprovide instructions to other sub-circuits contained within controlcircuitry 704, such as the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding,encrypting, decrypting, scaling, analog/digital conversion circuitry,and the like.

At step 902, control circuitry 704 receives, from a remote server, thefirst user viewing profile including a first plurality of media assets.At step 904, control circuitry 704 determines a first set of rules forthe first user viewing profile based on the first plurality of mediaassets. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 determines the firstset of rules for the first user viewing profile based on the firstplurality of media assets by retrieving one or more metadata tags foreach of the first plurality of media assets, determining one or moretrends in the one or more metadata tags for each of the first pluralityof media assets, and determining the first set of rules based on the oneor more trends. In some embodiments, the one more metadata tags includesone or more of a genre, a time slot, a title, a channel, a media source,a language, a month, a day of week, a parental rating, and a popularityrating. At step 906, control circuitry 704 receives a selection to viewa media asset on the user device. At step 908, control circuitry 704applies the first set of rules to the media asset to determine whetherthe media asset is consistent with the first user viewing profile. Insome embodiments, control circuitry 704 applies the first set of rulesto the media asset to determine whether the media asset is consistentwith the first user viewing profile by retrieving one or more metadatatags for the media asset, and determining, based on the one or moremetadata tags, whether any of the first set of rules indicate alikelihood of the first user having selected the media asset.

At step 910, control circuitry 704 determines whether the media asset isconsistent with the first user viewing profile. If the media asset isconsistent with the first user viewing profile, at step 912, controlcircuitry 704 updates the first user viewing profile to include themedia asset in the first plurality of media assets. At step 914, controlcircuitry 704 further updates the first set of rules for the first userviewing profile based on the updated first plurality of media assets andreturns to step 906. In some embodiments, the first set of rules isstored in a local memory of the user device and the first viewingprofile is stored on the remote server.

If the media asset is not consistent with the first user viewingprofile, at step 916, control circuitry 704 retrieves, from the remoteserver, a second user viewing profile for a second user of the userdevice. The second user viewing profile includes a second plurality ofmedia assets and associated with a second set of rules. At step 918,control circuitry 704 further applies the second set of rules to themedia asset to determine whether the media asset is consistent with thesecond user viewing profile. In some embodiments, the second set ofrules is stored in a local memory of the user device and the secondviewing profile is stored on the remote server.

At step 920, control circuitry 704 determines whether the media asset isconsistent with the second user viewing profile. If the media asset isconsistent with the second user viewing profile, at step 922, controlcircuitry 704 updates the second user viewing profile to include themedia asset in the second plurality of media assets. At step 924,control circuitry 704 further updates the second set of rules for thesecond user viewing profile based on the updated second plurality ofmedia assets and returns to step 906. If the media asset is notconsistent with the second user viewing profile, at step 926, controlcircuitry 704 determines whether another user viewing profile isavailable for analysis. If another user viewing profile is notavailable, control circuitry 704 proceeds to step 906 and waits foranother selection to view a media asset on the user device. If anotheruser viewing profile is available, control circuitry 704 proceeds tostep 916 to retrieve another user viewing profile for analysis.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 generates for display aprompt requesting confirmation from the first user whether to proceedwith the selected media asset in response to determining that the mediaasset is not consistent with the first user viewing profile. In someembodiments, in response to receiving the confirmation from the firstuser to proceed with the selected media asset, control circuitry 704generates for display another prompt requesting a passcode from thefirst user. In some embodiments, control circuitry 704 receives thepasscode. In response to the passcode being incorrect, control circuitry704 generates for display the media asset but prevents the media assetfrom being included in the first user viewing profile. In someembodiments, in response to the passcode being correct, controlcircuitry 704 generates for display the media asset and includes themedia asset in the first user viewing profile.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 9 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations, such as those at 910, 920, and 926, may be performed in anyorder or in parallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. As a further example, in some embodimentsseveral instances of a variable may be evaluated in parallel, usingmultiple logical processor threads, or the algorithm may be enhanced byincorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it should be noted thatthe process of FIG. 9 may be implemented on a combination ofappropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 7-8 could be used toimplement one or more portions of the process.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an illustrative process 1000 for controlcircuitry (e.g., control circuitry 704) to determine whether theselected media asset is consistent with the first user viewing profilein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. The illustrativeprocess provides exemplary steps for executing step 908 of FIG. 9. Insome embodiments this algorithm may be encoded onto a non-transitorystorage medium (e.g., storage device 708) as a set of instructions to bedecoded and executed by processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry706). Processing circuitry may in turn provide instructions to othersub-circuits contained within control circuitry 704, such as the tuning,video generating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling,analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like.

At step 1002, control circuitry 704 retrieves one or more metadata tagsfor the media asset, e.g., from source 816 or 818. For example, ametadata tag may indicate the media asset belongs to the drama genre. Atstep 1004, control circuitry 704 retrieves a rule from the first set ofrules for the first user viewing profile, e.g., from storage 708. Forexample, the rule may indicate that the user predominantly watchestelevision programs from the comedy genre on weekdays. In such a case,if the user were to select a television program belonging to the dramagenre on a weekday, control circuitry 704 may determine the selectedtelevision program to be inconsistent with the user's viewing profile.In another case, if the user were to select a television programbelonging to the comedy genre on a weekday, control circuitry 704 maydetermine the selected television program to be consistent with theuser's viewing profile.

At step 1006, control circuitry 704 applies the rule to the media assetbased on the retrieved metadata tags. At step 1008, control circuitry704 determines, based on the metadata tags, whether the rule indicates alikelihood of the first user having selected the media asset. If therule indicates a likelihood of the first user having selected the mediaasset, at step 1010, control circuitry 704 returns an indication thatthe media asset is consistent with the first user viewing profile. Ifthe rule does not indicate a likelihood of the first user havingselected the media asset, at step 1012, control circuitry 704 determineswhether another rule in the first set of rules is available forapplication. If another rule is available, control circuitry 704 returnsto step 1004 and retrieves the rule from the first set of rules for thefirst user viewing profile, e.g., from storage 708. If another rule isnot available, at step 1014, control circuitry 704 returns an indicationthat the media asset is not consistent with the first user viewingprofile.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 10 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations, such as those at 1008 and 1012, may be performed in anyorder or in parallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. As a further example, in some embodimentsseveral instances of a term in the query may be evaluated in parallel,using multiple logical processor threads, or the algorithm may beenhanced by incorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it should benoted that the process of FIG. 10 may be implemented on a combination ofappropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 7-8 could be used toimplement one or more portions of the process.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving a selection of amedia asset identifier corresponding to a media asset while a firstviewing profile is a selected profile; in response to detecting thatmetadata of the media asset does not match metadata of the first viewingprofile, generating for display a prompt comprising: a first selectableoption to view the media asset and update the first viewing profilebased on the metadata of the media asset; and a second selectable optionto change the selected profile to a second viewing profile, wherein themetadata of the media asset matches metadata of the second viewingprofile.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: in response toreceiving a selection of the first selectable option: generating fordisplay the media asset; and updating the first viewing profile based onthe metadata of the media asset.
 3. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: in response to receiving a selection of the secondselectable option: changing the selected profile to the second viewingprofile; and updating the second viewing profile based on the metadataof the media asset.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the promptcomprises a third selectable option to play the media asset and preventupdate of the first viewing profile to include the metadata of the mediaasset, the method further comprising: in response to receiving aselection of the third selectable option: generating for display themedia asset; and preventing update of the first viewing profile toinclude the metadata of the media asset.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the prompt comprises a notification indicating that the metadataof the media asset does not match the metadata of the first viewingprofile.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the prompt comprises a thirdselectable option to update the second viewing profile to include themetadata of the media asset without changing the selected profile, themethod further comprising: in response to receiving a selection of thethird selectable option: maintaining the first viewing profile as theselected profile; and updating the second viewing profile to include themetadata of the media asset.
 7. The method of claim 6, furthercomprising determining that the metadata of the media asset matchesmetadata of a third viewing profile, and wherein the prompt furthercomprises a fourth selectable option to update the third viewing profileto include the metadata of the media asset without changing the selectedprofile.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: in response todetecting that the metadata of the media asset does not match themetadata of the first viewing profile, identifying the media asset as acorrupting media asset for the first viewing profile.
 9. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the detecting that the metadata of the media asset doesnot match the metadata of the first viewing profile comprises:determining a set of rules based on the metadata of the first viewingprofile; and determining, based on the set of rules, that the metadataof the media asset does not match the metadata of the first viewingprofile.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising storing the setof rules in association with the first viewing profile.
 11. A systemcomprising: input/output (I/O) circuitry configured to: receive aselection of a media asset identifier corresponding to a media asset,wherein the selection is received while a first viewing profile is aselected profile; and control circuitry coupled to the I/O circuitry andconfigured to: in response to detecting that metadata of the media assetdoes not match metadata of the first viewing profile, generate fordisplay a prompt comprising: a first selectable option to view the mediaasset and update the first viewing profile based on the metadata of themedia asset; and a second selectable option to change the selectedprofile to a second viewing profile, wherein the metadata of the mediaasset matches metadata of the second viewing profile.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: inresponse to receiving a selection of the first selectable option:generate for display the media asset; and update the first viewingprofile based on the metadata of the media asset.
 13. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: inresponse to receiving a selection of the second selectable option:change the selected profile to the second viewing profile; and updatethe second viewing profile based on the metadata of the media asset. 14.The system of claim 11, wherein the prompt comprises a third selectableoption to play the media asset and prevent update of the first viewingprofile to include the metadata of the media asset, and wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured to: in response to receiving aselection of the third selectable option: generate for display the mediaasset; and prevent update of the first viewing profile to include themetadata of the media asset.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein theprompt comprises a notification indicating that the metadata of themedia asset does not match the metadata of the first viewing profile.16. The system of claim 11, wherein the prompt comprises a thirdselectable option to update the second viewing profile to include themetadata of the media asset without changing the selected profile, andwherein the control circuitry is further configured to: in response toreceiving a selection of the third selectable option: maintain the firstviewing profile as the selected profile; and update the second viewingprofile to include the metadata of the media asset.
 17. The system ofclaim 16, wherein the control circuitry is further configured todetermine that the metadata of the media asset matches metadata of athird viewing profile, and wherein the prompt further comprises a fourthselectable option to update the third viewing profile to include themetadata of the media asset without changing the selected profile. 18.The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to: in response to detecting that the metadata of the mediaasset does not match the metadata of the first viewing profile, identifythe media asset as a corrupting media asset for the first viewingprofile.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry, whendetecting that the metadata of the media asset does not match themetadata of the first viewing profile, is configured to: determine a setof rules based on the metadata of the first viewing profile; anddetermine, based on the set of rules, that the metadata of the mediaasset does not match the metadata of the first viewing profile.
 20. Thesystem of claim 19, wherein the control circuitry is further configuredto store the set of rules in association with the first viewing profile.